Words By K1NG

I had a really good day Thursday.

I have dreams, as we all do, and it was one of those special days where I took one step closer to my dreams. It was a small step, but a step nonetheless and I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. I was so happy that I even posted about it on my twitter account.

Mid-way through my second post though, I was interrupted by a familiar sound that I hadn’t heard in a while. The distinct “pop” made me roll off my bed and lay on the floor. It was the sound of gunshots coming from outside my window. Usually, I have been lucky enough to be far away enough from these gunshots in the past that it never affected me. Five houses away is plenty to not worry about the sounds. Only once was the house ever hit with anything and it was just the garage window.

That night, however, was different. There are certain things in life that don’t process while you are experiencing it. Looking back though, the memory is vivid.

While twittering, I was sitting on my bed when I heard the first couple. I jumped off the bed and got below the window sill, keeping my body from being exposed in case a stray might have been coming towards me. More shots rang out in retaliation, which caused me to stupidly rise from my safe haven of brick wall to peek out at the action. The image that I saw is still stuck in my head twenty minutes later. A teenager holding a handgun firing straight ahead towards an obvious enemy. Flashes of light continued to occur for the seconds that I was still standing, but it felt like ten minutes.

The kid had no sense of guilt on his face as he fired these shots. He stood there with the poise of a soldier at war. It was a difficult thing to witness taking place across the street from where you sleep at night. I ducked back down while the bangs and flashes continued for another minute or two. Finally, the sounds of car tires leaving there mark on the street filled my ears. It was over and within minutes the parade of emergency vehicles made there way into the streets. Police began taping up the surrounding area as they looked for shells, and the ambulance began to do their job of packing an injured person into the back of their van.

The most horrifying part of this story for me though, is not about my own safety, or my own surroundings. It is the fact that we are not the only city plagued with this streak of violence that seems to be so prevalent in our country. It is the fact that I see children under the age of eight walk into the same residential court wheret the shots occurred at and know that they could have been hit in this pointless act of violence. It’s the fact that our politicians do next to nothing to stop these types of occurrences from happening in our neighborhoods and we are left defenseless.

So while I am glad that change is in the air on a national level, we can’t expect Obama or the powers that be in D.C. to change everything. We need to take it upon ourselves as a people to raise our children better and not let this indifferent, violent acts continue on in our society.

Please.

Organized Konfusion – Stray Bullet

Stray Shots

Black Hand Ent. – Flatline Mixtape

Freddie Hubbard – Windjammer

Babyface – From The Heart

Pharcyde – Cydeways-the_Best_of_the_Pharcyde-2001

Rich Boy Ft Polow Da Don – Drop (Promo CDS)

Queen_Latifah – Black_Reign

Paris – Unleashed

Raphael Saddiq – Instant Vintage

Snoop_Dogg-Lets_Get_Blown-(Promo_CDS)

Clipse – Hot_Damn-Promo_CDS

Clipse-New_World_BW_At_Your_Door Chinese_New_Year_-_Ltd.Ed.-VLS

Cassidy-B-Boy_Stance_Bw_A.M._To_P.M.-Promo-CDS

Nice & Smooth – Hip Hop Junkies (VLS)

Kelis-Caught_Out_There-_Retail_CDS

Kenna-Say_Goodbye_To_Love-_Promo_CDS

Stray Shots

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